digital audio

SanDisk has revved its line of tiny Sansa Clip players — now called the Sansa Clip+ for those of you keeping score at home — and, thankfully, hasn’t changed too much from the already-great device (see our Sansa Clip review here). Read More

There are so many wonderful things about this MP3 player idea. It’s not an actual product yet, but here are the basics. First, just like old school cassettes, you’ll need to choose a tape length: 45 minutes, 60 minutes, or 90 minutes. The higher the number, the more songs you can fit on the flash-based player. Read More

Sick of batteries and the burden that batteries carry? Me too, man. Me too. Here’s a hand-cranked MP3 player called the Eco Media Player Revolution. It’s the successor to the original hand-cranked Eco Media Player. This new one handles music and movie files in AAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, MP4, and WMV formats and features 4GB of storage.
There’s also an FM radio, photo album… Read More

For those of you who don’t care for the stock interface or firmware on your digital music player, there’s the Rockbox firmware, which works on many Archos, iRiver, iPod, iAudio, Gigabeat, and Sansa devices. The firmware features extended codec support (OGG, Flac, etc.) plus enhanced audio magic, MPEG video support, tagging, plug-ins, playlist creation, games, and more (see the… Read More

Recently announced by Samsung, the YP-U4 Litmus (above left) and the YP-Q1 Diamond (above right) MP3 players offer some unique features.
The Litmus will pack a 1-inch OLED screen, DNSe (“Dense”) 2.0 audio circuitry, and recordable hot keys so you can access the functions you use most often. Battery life is rated at 16 hours and the device handles MP3, WMA, and OGG files. FM… Read More

It appears that Creative has released a new MP3 player in the ZEN Krystal. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s only available in Hong Kong at the moment but perhaps it’ll eventually make its way stateside.
The Krystal runs for about $90 and features 4GB of storage, OLED display, simple drag and drop file management (no drivers required), FM radio, voice recorder, three games, and… Read More

So you have a Soundblaster X-Fi card with SPDIF-out. And a nice home theater system that you want to run your sound through. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right. It turns out it’s not so hard. But since this really isn’t my area of expertise, I’m going to let the kind folks over here explain everything to you. Basically, depending on what model you… Read More

I tip my hat to the excitement that is Monday morning with a hard-hitting review of a digital voice recorder. It’s the Sony ICD-UX70 with built-in USB connection and one-gigabyte of storage space. Hold on to your hat, it’s about to get crazy up in here. Read More

Oh wow, I guess I’m getting old. Did anyone else own this player — the Eiger Labs MPMan?
This is the 64-megabyte F20 shown here but I had the 32-megabyte F10. Remember how it hooked up to your computer via Parallel port and took forever to transfer songs?
Apparently the prototype for this device was shown at CeBIT back in March of 1998 before going on sale in May of the same… Read More

http://blip.tv/play/AauANw
Here’s a quick look at the 2GB video-capable Walkman from Sony. These little guys cost $99 and have a pretty easy-to-use interface, FM tuner, album art, and up to 33 hours of battery life for audio and up to 8 hours of battery life for video.
2GB Walkman Video MP3 Player [SonyStyle.com] Read More

Awww, will you look at that? Brought to you by a company named Newman (not to be confused with Newman, left), it’s two halves of a heart-shaped MP3 player exchanging a tender kiss.
You and a loved one could exchange your own tender kiss before work, split the MP3 player apart, and each listen to your half on your separate trains. Then when you get back home, reattach the two MP3 players… Read More

Amazon.com will reportedly purchase digital audiobook provider Audible.com in the second quarter of this year for $300 million. Smart, smart, smart.
The purchase will allow Amazon to offer up Audbile’s 80,000+ audio programs (mostly books, newspapers, and certain radio programs) for download to its digital content customers. Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has an audio jack that… Read More

I’ve been seeing a lot of these headphones with built-in storage and digital audio playback today. They’re almost everywhere, staring at me as if I’d tried to date their sister. Leave me alone, hundreds and hundreds of similar headphones!
This pair, in particular, is made by a company out of Hong Kong called Majesty Industrial. They come in a myriad of storage sizes running up… Read More

Will the impending Toshiba Gigabeat U series be the new Nano killer? No. And I’m ashamed that I even used that cheap, sensationalistic journalism tactic. I don’t know what got into me.
There are three models; the U104, the U205, and the U206. The U104 features 1GB of memory. The U205 and U206 each have 2GB and feature FM reception and a built-in FM transmitter. They all have… Read More

Many, many, many years ago, I made peace with the fact that I’ll never run a marathon. It was an easy decision because I find running excessive distances to be painful and boring. It’s just not for me. I admire people who can do it, though.
The New York Times has an interesting article about a marathon rule that forbids the use of music players in the name of safety and fair… Read More

Microsoft’s Zune Home AV Pack is expected to retail for $99.99
Just in time for the November 13th launch of Microsoft’s next batch of digital music players will be a virtual cornucopia of accessories like docks, speakers, armbands, cases, FM transmitters, docks, and more docks — more than 60 new products in all. Read More

Staples.com has the 1GB Creative ZEN Stone for $35, which includes free shipping.
Not too shabby if you need a MP3 player for working out. Might make a good gift idea too. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is good for 10 hours worth of music and the player also includes support for Audible.com’s audio book format.
Creative Labs ZEN Stone 1GB MP3 Player, Black [Staples.com] via dealnews Read More

The currently-Japan-only iRiver DP350 replaces last year’s DP300 and will come in 2GB and 4GB flavors for $120 and $150, respectively.
File support includes MPEG-4 and WMV for videos and MP3, WAV, and OGG for audio files. Popular image file formats are supported as well. There’s also a built-in FM tuner that can record broadcasts to WAV along with USB host support, 18 hours of… Read More

Yikes. Not good. Not good at all. South Hessia, Germany’s TrekStor has launched a new MP3 player in its “i.Beat” series called the “blaxx.”
Put that all together and you’ve got yourselves a nice little marketing/PR nightmare.
TrekStor Press Release via Gizmodo Read More

I’m getting ready to move from Minneapolis to Boston and, upon cleaning out my house, found a treasure trove of old CDs that I’d shoved under the stairs along with my 3DO and Sega Saturn systems that some idiot spilled beer all over. I grabbed Metallica’s self-titled black album (which, coincidentally was the first CD I ever bought) and threw it in the last remaining CD player… Read More